Letters of Ted Hughes

Description

At the outset of his career Ted Hughes described letter writing as 'excellent training for conversation with the world', and he was to become a prolific master of this art which combines writing and talking. This selection begins when Hughes was seventeen, and documents the course of a life at once resolutely private but intensely attuned to other lives (including a readership comprising both adults and children): a life pared down to essentials and yet eventful, peripatetic, at times publicly controversial.

Christopher Reid is the author of a number of books of poems, including, most recently, For and After (2003) and Mr Mouth (2006). Betwen 1991 and 1999, he was Poetry Editor at Faber and Faber, and worked with Ted Hughes on such books as Tales from Ovid and Birthday Letters. In 2007, he was appointed Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Hull.

"'This is a book, like the letters of Keats, which will be read in 200 years' time.' Philip Hensher, Spectator 'This year's most surprising and rewarding book.' Blake Morrison, Guardian 'Reid's succinct annotation allows the full, unique personality to blaze out unimpeded, and the result is magnificent.' John Carey, Sunday Times"